McCraw's Bizarre Accusations

I was more than a little surprised to read these ugly accusations against Astros GM Gerry Hunsicker on the Chron sports page today. Tom McCraw, the former Astros hitting coach has accused the GM of spreading negative stories about him:

"They put some pretty nasty words out about me," he said. "I think Hunsicker blackballed me. The rap was that I had trouble with the bottle, slept in the dugout and was lazy."

The reason this surprised me is that Hunsicker is generally regarded as one of the straight shooters in baseball, an honorable guy who does a really good job with the limitations imposed by a cheap owner. And the more I thought about it, the more I seemed to recall a similar incident a few years ago. So I went poking around the web a bit, and sure enough found this item (note: if the link doesn't work, hit reload a couple of times; it's really finicky for some reason):

Count McCraw among the alienated. He was the hitting coach for the Mets under Dallas Green, the manager Valentine replaced in New York on August 26, 1996. When that season ended, McCraw was fired, whether by Valentine or by then-GM Joe McIlvaine is not clear. But McCraw's problem with Valentine is not that he was fired. It is the word he heard later -- word that Valentine had accused him of drinking during a game.

According to McCraw, some of the Mets' coaches and players had been swapping drinking stories in an off-field bull session. McCraw, who lives in rural Virginia, mentioned that he hooks up with some moonshiners during his offseason there. At the urging of some Mets, he brought some of the moonshine into the clubhouse after a game near the end of the season and poured samples into tiny cups for those wanting a taste. There was never any drinking during a game, McCraw says.

"But he tried to get a writer to write that story," he says. "The writer wouldn't do it. Now, if you say I'm a horse— hitting instructor, that's fine. I respect that, because that's your opinion. But when you say I'm drinking on the job, now you're messing with my livelihood. When you do things like that, I just don't have any respect for you. It's deceitful. And to this day, I don't know why he did it. . . . I just know it's a horse— way to go about life."

The writer to whom McCraw referred asks to remain anonymous, but he confirms that Valentine told him during an off-the-record lunch that McCraw had been drinking on the job. The writer, no longer on the Mets beat, mentioned it to McCraw the following year, after McCraw had been hired by the Astros. He never wrote the story.

"While Valentine didn't tell me to write it, you know how some guys just dump stories in your lap," the writer says. "They wouldn't mind if they were out. You know what I mean? I just mentioned it to Mac the next time I saw him because I cared about him."

Valentine, aware that The Sporting News had spoken with McCraw, would not address the issue further, standing on his current ground rules. But the next afternoon in the Mets' dugout, he says, "Did McCraw tell you that he staged a scene in my office with the writer right outside the door?"

Well, how interesting! This is not the first time McCraw has gone off half-cocked and accused people of spreading rumors that he has a drinking problem in the dugout! And it leads me to believe that he probably does have a drinking problem in the dugout, not to mention some psychological problems. But I'm convinced that Gerry Hunsicker isn't spreading rumors about it; hell, as poorly as the Astros are playing, Hunsicker has much more to worry about.

It might have been nice, of course, if the Chron sportswriter had done his research, and had written about McCraw's past accusations in this regard. But certainly I don't expect such (minor) effort from Houston's Leading (mis)Information Source.

[Posted at 20:32 CST on 05/01/02] [Link]